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Well folks. I'm done with fishless cycling. I'm tired, bored and annoyed that it just isn't working for me. I'm going fish in as soon as I finish planting the tank.

I have 2 spare filter sponges being seeded in a friends external filter since last week. Probably Wednesday or Thursday evening, those sponges and a small shoal (5) small fish are going in to the tank.

I would have liked to fishless cycle the tank and I know that putting fish in the tank may not solve the problem and I may be setting myself up for months of regular water changes, but there has to come a point when the plan isn't working and it's time to change the plan.

May I suggest using Buenos Aires Tetras for your fish in cycle?
They are extremely hardy, and more than likely to survive the cycling process.
They are larger fish, which seems to help... and makes the tank not look so empty.
They can survive temps from 62-84 F, which gives you plenty of time to adjust the heater... just do so very slowly. Or go unheated.
They should cost about $1.50 each.

Downsides...
They are likely to survive, they are larger fish, known fin nippers, and they enjoy the occasional bite of your live plants. They find Ghost Shrimp delicious. They are silver with red and black fins... not the most colorful.

I learned to love mine... not everyone does. Fortunately, they are not overly hard to give away.

Feed them standard flake food, as much as the can eat in about a minute, and at least once a week a WASHED outside leaf of romaine lettuce, or zuchinni.

Last edited by Cliff; 05-10-2013 at 07:49 PM.
Reason: As requested by the member

"More than likely to survive".... Saddens me to read where this thread is going.

Yes. Agreed. But. I have to say that I have done a lot worse to fish than what I'm planning on doing. Not just in an tank, but from the sea with a fishing rod.

I had one goldfish when I was 15 that only lived a year in a bowl which I killed wondering if it liked beer.

I recently managed to kill 5 fish around Christmas through plain 'BioOrb generation' ignorance. Fish that lived happily for 6 months having been in the tank (staged) with barely any water changes, and even then with tap water, no water treatment, virtually no cleaning, over fed and no water testing through the whole cycle and beyond. It was actually this (the deaths) and how crap the BioOrb was that made me decide to go research how to properly keep an aquarium and brought me here.

As it turns out one of the last things I did with the BioOrb was test it's water. 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, Instantly off the charts Nitrate. Blood red in seconds. One white moutain minnow survived and survives till this day in the same BioOrb. The only difference is it was cleaned out (total restart) and now my mother is carer, doing (at my instructions) daily water changes to keep below 0.25 ammonia. We named the Minnow "Chuck noris" or "Chucky". I swear you could net him (her) out and into a frying pan and he'd (she'd) jump back in the tank and keep on living. Virtually unkillable.

So my current 125 litre is still fishless as a result of me trying very hard to "get it right", but.... it's not currently working, so even though the evidence and justification for "fishless cycle" is staring me in the face, I have to confess to fish keeping friends locally, that it's just not as tried and tested as fish in. And... that I have to accept fishless is not working for me and they swear that fish in worked for them, with no deaths.

This time, I know to keep the ammonia as low as possible with water changes, so compared the last tank I ran, these fish will be in paradise. I know what cycling is and how to monitor it.

Oh, and I have a back up plan. It's not great, but, I have an experimental bucket I've been keeping with a filter in it and ammonia for about 3 weeks now and will be trying a different source of ammonia in it. If it turns out the problem is with either my main tank or the ammonia, I will be able to determine which by swapping media between them and in the event it's not the ammonia, move the cycling fish to the cycled bucket - replaced with a small tank - and deep clean the main tank, dechlorinate and start it again. Not great but it allows a route back to plan A if I find the problem with it, while concurrently giving plan B (fish in cycling) a try.

I hope you are able to get your tank up and running successfully. I know it must be pretty disappointing to be all dressed up and no where to go. I hope you post pics when everything is to your liking, I look forward to seeing your tank...

Thank you. No fish yet. It's not that it's taking a long time for the cycle to work/finish, it's that nothing has happened by way of the cycle starting. Over seven weeks and no movement of ammonia, no nitrites.

Everything else is happily living in the tank, I have had snails, algae, fungus, flies and now worms and something (possibly the worms) laying eggs on the rocks in their dozens possibly hundreds. A few predators, ie. fish might help!

I finished planting the tank yesterday. My idea of a high mound with a cave under it was abandoned when I couldn't get the sand to stay put onto of it. The slightest touch and it land slide off, so no way to plant it. I ended up with this.

Even though this was about a 200% water change by the time I got it cleared post-planting and the rocks where brushed down and cleared, I almost immediately have a colony of wriggling worms and what I believe are their eggs are rapidly re-establishing on the rocks. You can see what I mean on the rock at the back.

If the cycle doesn't start by mid week I am taking 2 seeding filter sponges from a friends tank, they will have been in there nearly 3 weeks and as a condition of her providing them for me, I am putting in a small shoal of hardy fish. She got upset when I suggested just adding ammonia with her seeded sponges.

2 weeks later after Nitrite showed up and went off the chart and it has been teasing me with 0.25ppm-0.5ppm nitrite each morning for 4 days now. I believe this is normal and one morning there will be 0ppm.

Not over yet when I get the first double zeros. My water has been delibrately altered for bacteria growth, so first double 0's the temp will be dropped to what the fish will expect 24C. The second time there is double 0's I'll do a 50-75% water change to lower the KH back towards tap. After that, double zero's for 2 days in a row will mean, following another big water change to lower nitrates, time for fish, at last.